Creating online content is increasingly becoming a dominant trend in this era. Even the rate at which people are embracing online content is dazzling. This has increased significantly the need to stand out from the ever-growing crowd of content marketers. This is where SEO comes in.
It’s crucial to have an SEO strategy alongside your content strategy. Doing so will ensure your posts are as optimized as possible, and SEO tools help with that. Some SEO tools are paid, but that doesn’t mean that you have to spend money to rank. There are tons of free SEO tools that are just as powerful as their paid counterparts and can help you drive more traffic.
In this article, we have compiled a list of some of the best free SEO tools. They are categorized into Keyword Research, Link Building, Analytics, and Technical SEO tools that you can use to better your SEO strategy. Let’s get started!
Technical SEO Tools
Technical SEO is essentially the more involved optimization tweaks that help give your content the best chance to rank for relevant keywords and phrases. It allows you to focus on analyzing how well the search engines are crawling and accessing your website. These are some of the best free Technical SEO tools.
Pagespeed Insights
In SEO, speed is everything. The faster your site loads, the better you will rank on search engines, and the more your website’s experience will be enjoyable for visitors. Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool allows you to analyze a specific page’s site speed and user experience. Additionally, it will show you how to fix any errors on the page to help your site load fast. It doesn’t matter if you are optimizing for tablet devices, desktop, or mobile, it will tell you what to fix.
Siteliner
Siteliner is a tool that allows you to find duplicate content within your website. You need to insert your domain, and it crawls up to 250 pages online. It analyzes the percentage of your website that is duplicate content.
It will then tell you which pages have duplicate content and how much percentage they have. You can then analyze each page and make the necessary changes to avoid too much duplicate content on your site.
SEO Analyzer
This tool tells you everything that’s wrong with your pages, from duplicate meta tags to sitemaps. It looks at every crucial factor when it comes to SEO and content creation. It will even tell you your overall site speed and what you need to fix to get the most out of your site. If you register for a free account on SEO Analyzer, this tool automatically checks for errors each week on your behalf.
Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research is a core part of optimizing your site. Keyword Research Tools make it easier to find the right keywords to target and give you the data that you need to rank for them. It is crucial to find and use the right keywords because when you do keyword research poorly, it can complicate your search and slow you down.
Ubbersuggest
Ubersuggest is a free SEO tool that helps users generate new keywords and content ideas. This tool will give you a high-level overview of the keyword you’re searching for. It’s a great tool to use when looking for new ways to fill your social media or content calendar. It shows you how many searches a keyword has had over the last 12 months, all of the keywords your competition ranks for, and suggests content ideas based on the keyword. It is unique in that it provides local keyword suggestions. This is great for sites that are trying to do local SEO.
Google Trends
As the name suggests, this tool helps you track the popularity of topics and trends in your industry over time. It gives you a clear picture of how specific trends change over time and how people’s searching patterns around them change. To use Google Trends, you start by typing in a keyword. Then you’ll see the interest in that topic over time, which regions are most interested, and other keywords that people are searching for related to that query.
Link Building
Search engines are constantly updating their ranking algorithm to deliver relevant results, but backlinking continues to impact rankings significantly. External backlinks from other relevant and trustworthy sites act as a vote of confidence and help you to build your authority. Here are some tools to help you build your Link network.
Ahrefs Backlink Checker
Ahrefs Backlink Checker is a free tool that shows you the top 100 backlinks to any website you search. To use this tool, enter a URL into their search bar, and you’ll see the site’s domain rating, the number of backlinks, and the number of referring domains.
This free tool is great for some light backlink checking, as well as analyzing your competitors. Even though you’re limited to viewing 100 links, it’s still a great place to start. It shows you the total number of backlinks, links from referring domains, the site’s Domain and URL rating.
Mozbar
In SEO, the higher the authority of a site linking to you, the better off you are. MozBar shows you the domain authority and page authority of every page on the web. If you are going to build links effectively and rank higher, focus on the sites with the highest authority.
SEMRush
Similar to the above tools, SEMRush has a free version of its robust tool. SEMRush is not just for link building. It can provide help with keyword research, on-page SEO audits, content optimizations, rank tracking and much more. You just need to create a free account to access these features.
Analytics
If you’re already consistently pumping out engaging content and have a solid distribution strategy in motion, the next step is to do a follow-up. You need to know how that content is performing, who’s visiting your website, and how you can engage your audience so they’ll return. Here are some tools for the job.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the go-to platform for many marketers. It is free, chock-full of features, and comes with the clout of the Google brand name. After you enter the Google Analytics code into your website’s HTML, it measures your goals for you, including which pages a visitor clicks on, how long they stay, and the actions they take. For example, the tool can tell you whether a visitor is sharing the content on social media or clicking on an ad.
Search Console
It’s hard to imagine doing modern SEO without access to the data inside Google’s Search Console. The platform helps you make sure your website or Android app is Google-friendly and shows up in relevant search results. This is the most reliable location for information on how Google crawls and ranks your site and is one of the only places where you can get reliable keyword data.
